Abandoned Traditions: Spiritual Journey

I am late to this gathering, this writing of Spirit, due Maundy Thursday but penning on Easter Sunday instead.

I feel rather like the breathless women arriving at the tomb, just barely realizing what has happened.  Confused, saddened, angry perhaps at an incorrectly perceived injustice until the truth is revealed.

Several years ago, I drifted away from the Church of my childhood, taking my family along with me.  The suffocating patriarchy, the tedium and social politics experienced by my children in religious education, and my increased reading on the representation of the feminine in the Divine drove the wedge deep enough to impact our church attendance.  It didn't happen all at once, but eventually we all realized that much of the teachings just didn't align with how we needed to experience Divine presence.

We lost our religion, but not our faith.  We still said grace, blessed each other at bedtime, performed service projects in lieu of crowded Christmas Mass, made birthday cakes for Jesus on Christmas Eves and looked for the baby in the manger on the mantel on Christmas mornings, placed there by Santa (who enjoyed his slice of cake instead of a cookie).  Sometimes we made Lenten resolutions, trying to focus more on positive acts than on the giving up of chocolate.  We had special dinners at Easter.  But the children have grown and are (mostly) flown from the nest, and so the home traditions are going by the wayside.

During this transition, I needed a faith practice that was inclusive of all my Christian, Hindu, Muslim, and Jewish friends.  I needed to hear of a God who loved all of His/Her children, even my gay relatives and friends.  The God of Love, who invites all to the table, sinners and saints, no password needed.  I found Her through books--Nadia Bolz Weber's stories of her progressive Lutheran church, Sue Monk Kidd's awakening in The Dance of the Dissident Daughter  and the bibliography she provides.  There were discussions with friends of faith and even a spiritual director, all affirming this questioning as spiritual growth.

I feel like my faith has grown as the years have passed.  I believe in the power of prayer, especially those of my Celtic forebears which often draw upon the wonders of this Creation, connecting Heaven and Earth.  I experience the Divine in beautiful sunsets, birds at my feeder, the many-hued faces of my students, the sharing of good food and soul-filling conversation.  Absolution is given with heartfelt apologies and changed behavior, not in closed cabinets with curtained screens.  Communion is bringing a cake to the party, canned goods to the food bank collection.  Confirmation is found each morning in the granting of one more day to try and get it right and gratitude written in a journal at bedtime.  Matrimonial blessings are conferred in the smiles of loved ones wishing the new couple every good thing in their promised partnership, no matter the setting.

At the same time, I have a longing for the traditions of the old Church.  I miss the scent of incense, the sprinkling of Holy Water, the communal Lord's Prayer.  I miss the quiet of the sanctuary between Masses, the feeling of standing on sacred ground, the removal from the everyday for just an hour to focus on the Divine.

And so I have become an on-again, off-again seeker. I am truly walking this Spiritual Journey.  Here's hoping that the joining of this group of writers as they explore Spirit each month will be a new beginning, a brighter light shining on my dulling practices of faith.

Happy Easter.